Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones / The Randys Live @ Grandview Digfest Sat June 14th.

Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones will be returning to the Grandview Digfest on Saturday June 14th. The event is sponsored by the Grandview Chamber of Commerce and will be held at the Grandview Yards. There are 23 different beers being served, including Bones bassist Dan Cochran's Four String Brew. The Bones will be hitting the stage at 6:00 for an hour-long set followed by one of our all-time favorite bands, The Randys. And admission is.......FREE! If you miss this, you are truly a jack-ass. See you June 14th at Digfest.

Click here for more details about the event.

Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See, part the third: The Neighborhoods / "Real Stories"

(Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See will be a continuing feature in pencilstorm, at least until Ricki gets bored or the readership finds a way to make him stop.  Videos will be mainly little-seen or off-the-beaten-rock-&-roll-path.  

They're not exactly my answer/reply to Wal Ozello's Top Ten Rock Vocalists, but they all ARE rock & roll songs.  None of them are show tunes.    

Ricki will provide an intro to the videos of not-more-than-500 words, because we all know it’s impossible for Ricki to try to tell a simple story without going off into 10 different tangents and then forgetting altogether what he’s talking about.)

"Hey," you might be saying to yourself right now, "isn't the lead singer in today's video the guy I saw playing lead guitar last summer in the reconstituted Replacements?"  Yes, astute pencilstorm readers, today's video features David Minehan of Boston's late-70's to early 90's favorite sons - The Neighborhoods - appearing at The Channel Club in their rockin' heyday of 1982.  It's eminently possible I was in the audience at the show presented here.

From 1980 to 1984 I was working at Ross Laboratories, making a shitload of money, was newly divorced and occasionally flew to Boston on weekends just to see rock & roll bands.  (This was made possible by the existence of People's Express Airlines, a bargain-basement airline that was EXACTLY like a Greyhound Bus that flew. The round-trip fare to Boston ON THE WEEKEND was $76.  Admittedly it wasn’t exactly luxury travel, People's Express didn't even have chairs in their boarding area, you just had to sit on the floor or lean against the wall.  Even Greyhound has chairs in their terminals, though you might not necessarily want to actually SIT on them.  One Friday night, and I swear to God I am not joking or making this up, a gentleman of middle-eastern persuasion tried to bring a live chicken on the plane.  After much animated discussion - not very much of which was conducted in English - he was dissuaded.  He left the waiting area, went out to the parking garage for about two minutes, returned sans chicken and boarded the flight.  I have no idea what happened to that animal that evening and I don’t want to know.)

The Neighborhoods soldier on to this day in 2014, playing occasional shows around the Northeast, and remain a fearsome live unit.  In that circumstance, they share more than a little with their Columbus rock & roll brethren Watershed - a trio of rockers pounding out great rock & roll tunes to the faithful and winning new converts in their second century of playing the rock & roll.  

Reasons They Never Made It In America - I fully admit, here I'm mystified, I thought The Neighborhoods had it all.  They were just Kiss enough, but not TOO Kiss.  They played great, they looked great, Minehan wrote TREMENDOUS pop-punk songs and possessed every single rock-star trait except fame.  And, given that they were contemporaries of REM and The Replacements in the early 80's, I can't even say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I'm frankly baffled how they weren't huge.  Were The Neighborhoods one of the five best live bands I ever saw?  Yes, they were, and I've seen a fuckload of bands in my 61 years on the planet.  

Optional Extra-Credit Additional Viewing - Enter "The Neighborhoods" plus "Arrogance" plus "1979" and "The Neighborhoods" plus "Cultured Pearls" plus "2008" on YouTube for a thirty-year span of quality rock & roll.   

Reelin' & Rockin' @ the Gateway: "The Kids Are Alright" by Ricki C.

The Reelin’ & Rockin’ selection for this month at the Gateway Film Center – The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright” – is, quite simply, in my humble opinion, the greatest rock & roll documentary ever made that doesn’t include any audience members being killed by Hell’s Angels.  (Obviously, that leaves “Gimme Shelter” as the single greatest rock doc ever.) * 

 “The Kids Are Alright” was directed by 22 year-old Who fanatic Jeff Stein, who sported no previous movie experience whatsoever, let alone qualifications that would allow him to direct a major motion picture.  But that was kinda the story of late 70’s movie-making: “Jaws” and “Star Wars” had come out of nowhere to become HUGELY POPULAR pictures and Hollywood studios realized there was a new youth demographic ripe for the picking.  Then the Ken Russell-directed debacle that was The Who’s “Tommy” scored big in 1975, hence talented rookie Jeff Stein was handed the keys to the car & the editing room and “The Kids Are Alright” is the result.  (By the way, I have never seen the movie “Tommy.”  I will never see the movie “Tommy.”  I wish the movie “Tommy” had never existed.  On my rock & roll planet the mega-success of that movie is what forever stalled/stunted/killed Pete Townshend’s creativity in the 1970’s and ever after.  But that’s a whole ‘nother blog for a whole ‘nother time.)

Okay, I’m gonna try to pitch this movie for every existing generation of rock & roll fan: 

1) If you came of age in the 1960’s or 70’s this movie is a glorification of the greatest live rock & roll band of all time.  And yeah, I’m very well-aware of the existence of The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in those decades, and yeah I’m saying The Who were a better LIVE band than either one of them. 

2) If you came of age in the 1980’s or 1990’s this film is a glimpse into the time before MTV existed, when power & passion reigned, when you didn’t have to be pretty & you didn’t have to be polite and a guy with a nose like Pete Townshend’s could still reign as a major media figure.   

3) If you came of age in the 21st century this movie is a Masters Course on JUST HOW FAST rock & roll progressed in those long-lost hazy days between 1965 and 1969, when The Who moved from 2-minute songs like “I Can’t Explain” to the rock opera “Tommy” in just four short years.  Bands nowadays go four years between CD RELEASES, let alone leapfrogging genres, styles & movements the way Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon did.

I’ve watched the DVD of “The Kids Are Alright” dozens, if not hundreds of times in the comfort & confines of my own home.  I haven’t seen it on the big screen at a movie theater since sometime in the 1980’s.  I can’t wait. – Ricki C. / May 15th, 2014

“THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT” WILL PLAY AT THE GATEWAY FILM CENTER ON CAMPUS
THIS WEDNESDAY, MAY 21ST, AT 8 PM.  HAPPY HOUR BEGINS AT 7 PM.
COME TO HAPPY HOUR AND LET RICKI C. BORE YOU TO TEARS WITH LEGENDARY STORIES OF
HOW GREAT THE WHO WERE WHEN HE SAW THEM LIVE IN 1969 AND 1972, AND HOW MUCH
HE NOW WISHES PETE TOWNSHEND HAD DIED BEFORE HE GOT OLD.
A GOOD TIME WILL BE HAD BY ALL.

*For a rundown of a Ricki’s other Best Of lists, please see The Best Of Everything and The Best Of Everything, part two in his own blog Growing Old With Rock & Roll.)

Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See, part the second: The Pop! / "Down On The Boulevard"

(Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See will be a continuing feature in pencilstorm, at least until Ricki gets bored or the readership finds a way to make him stop.  Videos will be mainly little-seen or off-the-beaten-rock-&-roll-path. Click here for part one.

They're not exactly my answer/reply to Wal Ozello's Top Ten Rock Vocalists, but they all ARE rock & roll songs.  None of them are show tunes.

Ricki will provide an intro to the videos of not-more-than-500 words, because we all know it’s impossible for Ricki to try to tell a simple story without going off into 10 different tangents and then forgetting altogether what he’s talking about.)

The Pop! were a mid-to-late 1970’s L.A. band led by Roger Prescott & David Swanson.  “Down On The Boulevard” was featured on their self-released indie album released in 1977, and that record is as great a slab of 12-inch vinyl as you’re gonna find coming out of the punk & New Wave days of late 1970’s Los Angeles.  They later signed to Arista in the post “My Sharona” FIND-US-THE-NEXT-KNACK-NOW! signing frenzy in the great power-pop boomlet of 1979 & 1980.  Arista inexplicably tried to turn a fundamentally great power-pop band into Talking Heads or The Cars, and the resulting album – GO! – was cold, sterile & overproduced.  The Pop! were never the same again.  This song, however, is great.

Reasons They Never Made It In America – Too long-haired & pop for the punks (plus knew how to tune and actually play their guitars); too punk & not Kiss enough for the great unwashed rock & roll masses.     

Optional Extra-Credit Additional Viewing – Enter "The Pop!" plus “Shakeaway” on YouTube.

Ray Davies is the Best Songwriter Exhibit H

This is part H of of a semi regular segment systematically proving that Ray Davies is the greatest songwriter this planet has ever produced. Today's song, "Have A Cuppa Tea" is our first from The Kinks record Muswell Hillbillies but sure not to be the the last. Video and lyrics below. Click here to read previous Ray Davies exhibit.    Enjoy! - Colin G.

Have a Cuppa Tea  (Ray Davies)

Granny's always ravin' and rantin'
And she's always puffin' and pantin'
And she's always screamin' and shoutin'
And she's always brewin' up tea

Grandpappy's never late for his dinner
'Cos he loves his leg of beef
And he washes it down with a brandy
And a fresh made cup of tea

Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea
Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Rosie Lea
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Rosie Lea

If you feel a bit under the weather
If you feel a little bit peeved
Take granny's stand by potion
For any old cough or wheeze
It's a cure for hepatitis, it's a cure for chronic insomnia
It's a cure for tonsillitis, and for water on the knee

Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Rosie Lea
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Rosie Lea

Tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea at supper time
You get tea when it's rainin', tea when it's snowin'
Tea when the weather's fine
You get tea as a mid day stimulant
You get tea with your afternoon tea
For any old ailment or disease
For Christ sake have a cuppa tea

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Rosie Lea
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Rosie Lea

Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed
Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree
It knows no motivations, no sect or organization
It knows no one religion, nor political belief

Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea
Have a cuppa tea, for Christ sake have a cuppa tea

Top Ten Vocalists: Part Three - Number One

You've been reading, watching, listening, and debating.

You've seen the first nine of my Top Ten list - agreed and fervently disagreed.

Now you want to know who my number one is.

Here's the crazy thing - it's a tie.

I can't decide. See... I was raised in the 80s during the days of power chords, big hair, and leather spandex. But my brothers were ten years older than me and they taught me rock 'n roll starting with the music they listed to in the 70s.

So I'm stuck living in both worlds - the 70s and the 80s, which is why it's a tie.

My first #1 is Freddie Mercury

If you've been following along this isn't going to be a surprise to you. I'm into the power vocalists from the 70s, the guys with range and talent.  I've been saying you have to have more than passion or attitude to be on my list. Here's the thing... Freddie's got the complete package: attitude, performance, presence, and a voice like no other. The guy has a massive range and total control of this voice. The way he used vibrato then add a little growl is his trademark. Listen to these isolated vocal tracks from the recording of Somebody To Love. Here's the truly miraculous thing: there wasn't autotune in those days.  It was all pitch perfect.

Only Freddie Mercury could write and sing a song that blends opera and rock n roll, and then have the masses fall in love with it. Think about this for a moment. Practically the same audience that would blast out any other rocking 70s tune would still turn this song up on the radio.

Finally, check out this song - "Who Wants To Live Forever?" On the record, Brian May the guitarist sings the first verse then you can instantly tell when Freddie takes over. Listen to the passion that he slowly builds throughout the song to an explosion at the end.

But here's the thing: Freddie's awesome but he's not perfect.  In fact, I was hard pressed to find any rock vocalist that fit my high standards to be number one. That's why I have a tie.

My other #1: Axl Rose

Yeah. You read that correctly. Axl f'n Rose. The guy has that distinctive angry rock voice but he's got talent, too. He's got this weird range that's both tenor and baritone at the same time. When I first listened to Appetite For Destruction I actually thought there was two lead singers. But why should that keep him off my list? If anything that's a plus in rock 'n roll.

A couple video tracks here. First is one of my favorites - Paradise City. Axl's sandpaper voice scrapes out the high notes on the chorus while his rythmic melodies rock out the verses. I swear that the Axl's on beat during the first verse and Adler's off rhythm. I'm also pretty sure that Axl's singing both leads and back-up vocals on the opening chorus.

Here's Axl's baritone voice at it's best. Again, the rhythmic melodies really kick ass here. This is live in '88 at the Ritz. Slash isn't at his best in the clip, nor is the rest of the band. My guess is they are all flying high on heroin.

Here's Axl's softer side that really lets his melodies shine. It sounds nothing like the guy who sings Paradise City and Welcome To The Jungle. This is Patience off of Lies, Lies, Lies.

So here's the problem with Axl and why he wasn't a clear #1 for me. Everything after Lies, Lies, Lies was an abomination. Use Your Illusion I & II was such an overproduced bag of shit it was pathetic. Way to ruin the rawness that made Guns N Roses what it was.

So that's my top ten.

Wal Ozello is the author of Assignment 1989: The Time Travel Wars and was the lead singer of the Columbus hairband Armada. He's a resident of Upper Arlington, Ohio and a frequent customer at Colin's Coffee.

Learn more about Wal Ozello and other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here